


Out of the Ashes

by Grundy



Series: Games Without Frontiers [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Snow didn't die laughing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 20:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11676171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grundy/pseuds/Grundy
Summary: Dawn has been waiting - and working - for this for a long time.





	Out of the Ashes

Dawn palmed her chosen weapon quietly, murmuring a spell to cover the sound of her footsteps. She wasn’t taking any chances. She’s been waiting - and working - for this for years. As satisfying as a fight might be, with a fight there would be a chance she’d lose. She was not here to lose. She was here to finish it.   
  
She pushed open the door to the morgue.   
  
He’d counted on this, she knew. He and Coin had used every last Victor as a weapon, although most of Panem had yet to realize that there had been more than one leader playing that game. Small wonder that given the choice between the two of them, Katniss had chosen to eliminate the tormentor who was still free. Girl might be a little crazy after all she’d been through, but she wasn’t stupid.  
  
The rest of the Capitol had been shocked. Dawn had been grimly amused – and a little bit relieved.   
  
She may have lived long enough to know that someone had to get their hands dirty to keep the heroes pure, but it didn’t make being the one to do it any easier. Not having to take Coin out was one less thing for her to regret later. She has enough ghosts haunting her sleep as it is. Killing humans is never easy – and as far as Dawn’s concerned, it shouldn’t be. The day it gets easy is the day she’s spent too long gazing into the abyss. She can only pray there will be someone standing behind her to take her down.   
But that day is hopefully far off in the future, and the ‘man’ she’s here for tonight isn’t human.   
  
Snow… eliminating him she’s going to  _enjoy_.  
  
Bloodsucking bastard figured he had the perfect gambit – point Katniss at Coin by giving her the cold hard facts about who turned the sister she loved more than life itself into a human torch. Then let her work. He didn’t even have to hand her the weapon – his opponent would do that for him. Snow hadn’t been sure that he wasn’t facing one of his own in Coin, but he did know Coin knew his secret.   
  
The bow was the tell – instead of her fancy Mockingjay weapon, for the execution Coin had brought out one of the old bows Katniss had salvaged from her District, and the arrows to go with it. No fancy District 13 materials. Wood.   
  
It was just as well Coin had been human.   
  
After Katniss shot her, all hell broke loose. While everyone in the crowd freaked out about Coin’s death and the people left in charge tried not to have kittens at the possibility that their Mockingjay might have been brainwashed – a possibility laughable to anyone who’d ever spent time with the girl who might just hold the record for prickliest female Victor ever – Snow ‘died’ laughing, still tied to his post. He knew damn well he’d be hustled straight to the morgue.   
  
Before she’d come sneaking down in the middle of the night, Dawn had browsed the computer system to determine exactly which cooler the former President was in- no doubt enjoying his little nap. Probably even plotting his next move, and considering how best to alter his appearance before trying to destabilize whatever government would be hastily thrown together without Coin to head it.  
She walked directly to it and pressed the button to release the tray holding the not so mortal ‘remains’ of Coriolanus Snow.  
  
Before he could even open his eyes, she made her move.  
  
The tranquilizer dart in her hand was special – fast acting and formulated especially for vampires. It’s not the first time it’s been necessary to keep a vamp still without completely incapacitating them. It was originally meant for questioning higher grade minions, in conjunction with a refinement of the technique they’d used against the Bringer back in Sunnydale.  
  
Dawn liked to think that Vi would appreciate the way her No. 1 Special was being re-purposed tonight. The long dead Slayer had done a chemistry degree at Cambridge and switched into the research arm of the Council after a severe injury put an end to her field career. Considering that injury had been at the hands of Snow’s sire, using Vi’s creation against his childe seemed particularly fitting.  
  
She watched with vicious schadenfreude as Snow’s eyes flew open, alarmed as his limbs refused to follow the impulses his no doubt furious brain was sending to them. His body remained stubbornly inert.   
  
“Checkmate,” she said conversationally, as if it’s chess they’ve been playing all these years. “You played such a wonderful game that you deserve to hear me say it instead of just staking you.”  
  
She paused, savoring the absolute rage in his cold grey eyes – and below it, the hope that she’ll be stupid enough to monologue too long.   
  
“I suppose I could pretend this is all about sportsmanship. Good form and all that. But we agreed many years ago never to lie to one another, and I’m a woman of my word. I wanted to rub it in. To make sure you  _knew_  you lost. We won. We’re still here. You didn’t kill us all. It’ll take some time, but we’ll rebuild. We’re going to undo the damage. And then we’re going after the Hellmouth.”  
  
She can see the amusement in his eye at that. She laughed.  
  
“You think you’re the oldest thing around? Think again, bub. You never knew who you were messing with. My name is Dawn Summers. You’ve heard of my sister. I’ve seen five Hellmouths closed, and I aim to see more sealed before I’m done.”  
  
She caught the tiny twitch that betrayed the paralytic wearing off. She’d been watching for it. She hadn’t had much, only enough for a small dose. But unfortunately for Snow, she’s seen all the Bond movies. She was never going to talk long enough for him to free himself.  
  
She’d had just enough time to let her twist the knife – to get a little bit of her own back for him hurting and killing so many so dear to her. For all the Tributes she couldn’t save as well as the ones she could. For the ones she’d recognized only to watch them die. For the ones she knew who had sacrificed themselves for the cause, trusting her to make certain the 75th Games would be the last. For Seeder, and Mags, and Finnick. For the Girl on Fire and sweet Rue and little Primrose Everdeen, the girl who was the spark. And for Cinna.  
  
“You’ll be going now. Goodbye, Coriolanus.”  
  
She draws the last words out in the exaggerated accent of the Capitol.  
  
“And may the odds be ever in your favor.”  
  
She plunged the stake home with all the anger of two hundred years of fighting the long defeat, and seventy five years of watching twenty-four (or occasionally more) kids die for his entertainment.   
  
Buffy always hated vamp dust. It got on her clothes and in her hair, made them smell of death and ashes.  
  
Dawn enjoyed the small cloud that exploded from the tray where Snow had been until her stake met the thing he called a heart.   
  
It smelled like victory.


End file.
